8 ms·

Don't fool yourself - both sides think the other is guilty of this.

colde 6y ago
The republicans effectively demonised the ACA, even though it was basically the compromise position (as it was quite similar to what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts). I would love some examples of democrats doing that.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  Would same-sex civil unions count? Or women and gay people in the military? There are a ton of social issues that society has moved dramatically leftward on; the fact that I agree with them doesn't mean I'm unable to step outside of my biases and understand why a conservative could just as easily make the claim that the left is intransigent.
  - dougmany 6y ago
    But we are not seeing further-to-the-left arguments on marriage rights. It's not like now that same-sex people can marry, people are pushing for plural or animal marriage.
    - newen 6y ago
      Not related to marriage rights but it’s pretty obvious that trans rights is the next big issue that’s being pushed nowadays. There was also that whole forcing businesses to make cakes for gay weddings thing (don’t remember the details but it was a whole controversy about rights of businesses to refuse service vs constraints due to discrimination laws).
    - Kye 6y ago
      There is a movement for polyamorous marriage. A city in Massachusetts just recognized that arrangement for domestic partnerships. I think, like with same-sex marriage, most people would struggle to think of a reason to be against it that isn't rooted in appeals to tradition. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/07/massachusetts-city-begins-legally-recognizing-polyamorous-relationships/ https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/07/massachusetts-city-begin... For animals, there's the Harkness Test.
      - jcranmer 6y ago
        Note that the dissent in Obergefell (the case ruling that states had to recognize gay marriage) actually explicitly said "It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage."
    - jlawson 6y ago
      No, they're pushing for free trans surgeries and puberty blockers for kids instead. It doesn't literally have to be the exact same issue over and over.
  - fiblye 6y ago
    The above comments are about people in Congress constantly pushing farther right. Congress could've legalized those at any time but didn't. Courts did.
  - digitaltrees 6y ago
    Most of those changes were driven by courts not republicans consent and compromise in legislation.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kec 6y ago
  Gun control and the "Gun Show loophole" comes to mind. Avoiding background checks for private transfer was the compromise position for requiring background checks for sales from FFLs.
  - lostapathy 6y ago
    Very much this. There hasn't been a gun rights "compromise" (or proposal for one) where democrats gave anything back in congress in ... well never. It's always more restrictions of existing rights. Compromise implies both sides give and take, and in the case of gun rights, democrats have only taken.
    - dougmany 6y ago
      I know a lot of liberal gun owning people. I have a hunch this is like environmental issues. I think many conservative want to support environmental issues but since it clashes with more government control, it get's thrown under the bus.
      - ardy42 6y ago
        > I know a lot of liberal gun owning people. I have a hunch this is like environmental issues. I think many conservative want to support environmental issues but since it clashes with more government control, it get's thrown under the bus. The American political system doesn't support a la carte ordering, it only has prix fixe options. If your priority is some main course, you might not be able to get the side you want with it.
        efreak 6y ago
        To make things worse, your main course might well be a side course; the thing you want might well be sacrificed for something else.
    - alasdair_ 6y ago
      >Very much this. There hasn't been a gun rights "compromise" (or proposal for one) where democrats gave anything back in congress in ... well never. It's always more restrictions of existing rights. This is actually a very good point. I wonder what the response would be to a Democrat-authored bill that (say) demanded universal background checks and proof of a firearms safety course completion and mandatory insurance like a driver's license that ALSO banned any restrictions on large magazine size and removed any restrictions on fully-automatic weapons, or something similar.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Putting aside a lot of nuance and complication, both parties have an 'ideal state' in mind. They will make decisions that move the law closer to that ideal state. It'll be happening all the time, neither of them think the ideal state is compromising with the other. And if you want an example of the Democrats doing something similar, maybe the immigration situation? It is also nuanced and complicated, but the appearance isn't that the Democrats are consistently working to uphold the consensus position as found in the law. There is a lot of demonising.
BoiledCabbage 6y ago
But yet again, while both sides may feel this way, when measured objectively (as has been done) it's shown that almost all of the sudden polarization of the past 30 years has come from the right continuously moving further right.
- lostapathy 6y ago
  Have they really moved farther right, or do they seem farther to the right since a lot of politics have moved to the left over that time? See same sex marriage, for example.
  - Majromax 6y ago
    A 2011-era FiveThirtyEight article (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-president-obama/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-presiden...) looked at average DW-NOMINATE scores over time for the House of Representatives. Its conclusion was: > According to the system, both parties have been on a trajectory toward more “extreme” positions since roughly 1970, the natural result of which is more polarization. However, the parties do not quite share equal responsibility for this: Republicans have moved about twice as much to the right as Democrats have to the left. Also, while the Democrats’ leftward shift was essentially a one-off event, the result of many moderate, Southern Democrats losing their seats in the early 1990s, the Republicans’ rightward transition has been continuous and steady. Although to caution too-credulous interpretation, the DW-NOMINATE scores are derived from roll-call votes, so they may be biased by the issues brought up for such votes.
    - jimbob21 6y ago
      This says the opposite, as well as being more recent. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-center-study-shows-that-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-c...
- sam_goody 6y ago
  > when measured objectively (as has been done) Citation needed. I have seen this claim about the left at least as much as about the right. I would definitely appreciate someone who could bring facts to the discussion. And a one sided list of things that party X did is just emotion. (Also, a good rule in honest debate is to never argue unless you have at least two advantages to the opposing position. Such that I hate Windows, but I wish Linux had their GUI... This helps bridge the "us" and "them", and gets to a much more accurate result)
digitaltrees 6y ago
People can think whatever they, that doesn’t make it real. Your argument is a false equivalence. Even if both sides do it, it’s not of the same proportion and that matters. Objectively, Republicans are not compromising, they are often explicit that they are waging a scorched earth zero compromise negotiating style. The heritage foundation wrote the template for the ACA in the 70s as an alternative to Medicare expansion. It was then Bob Dole’s plan when he ran against Bill Clinton, and was Dole’s alternative to Clinton’s health plan. Then Romney passed it in Massachusetts. But when Obama consciously tries to compromise and meet in the middle instead of participating they say it’s communism. They spent a decade to repeal a plan they invented. Similar with global warming. Cap and trade was a republican idea. Where have they compromised? Instead they are demonizing all of science to shift the conversation to absurdity. How about the 2008 stimulus. Obama has to fight tooth an nail for 800 billion even though economists say the output gap is $1.5 Trillion and the stimulus needs to be bigger. But Obama agrees thinking when it’s clear more is needed more will be available. He underestimated how much Mitch meant it when he said “the single objective is to make Obama a one term president” and was willing to let the economy struggle if needed. Then Trump gets $3 trillion with Democrats compromising all over the place.

The republicans effectively demonised the ACA, even though it was basically the compromise position (as it was quite similar to what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts). I would love some examples of democrats doing that.

wutbrodo 6y ago
Would same-sex civil unions count? Or women and gay people in the military? There are a ton of social issues that society has moved dramatically leftward on; the fact that I agree with them doesn't mean I'm unable to step outside of my biases and understand why a conservative could just as easily make the claim that the left is intransigent.
- dougmany 6y ago
  But we are not seeing further-to-the-left arguments on marriage rights. It's not like now that same-sex people can marry, people are pushing for plural or animal marriage.
  - newen 6y ago
    Not related to marriage rights but it’s pretty obvious that trans rights is the next big issue that’s being pushed nowadays. There was also that whole forcing businesses to make cakes for gay weddings thing (don’t remember the details but it was a whole controversy about rights of businesses to refuse service vs constraints due to discrimination laws).
  - Kye 6y ago
    There is a movement for polyamorous marriage. A city in Massachusetts just recognized that arrangement for domestic partnerships. I think, like with same-sex marriage, most people would struggle to think of a reason to be against it that isn't rooted in appeals to tradition. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/07/massachusetts-city-begins-legally-recognizing-polyamorous-relationships/ https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/07/massachusetts-city-begin... For animals, there's the Harkness Test.
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      Note that the dissent in Obergefell (the case ruling that states had to recognize gay marriage) actually explicitly said "It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage."
  - jlawson 6y ago
    No, they're pushing for free trans surgeries and puberty blockers for kids instead. It doesn't literally have to be the exact same issue over and over.
- fiblye 6y ago
  The above comments are about people in Congress constantly pushing farther right. Congress could've legalized those at any time but didn't. Courts did.
- digitaltrees 6y ago
  Most of those changes were driven by courts not republicans consent and compromise in legislation.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kec 6y ago
Gun control and the "Gun Show loophole" comes to mind. Avoiding background checks for private transfer was the compromise position for requiring background checks for sales from FFLs.
- lostapathy 6y ago
  Very much this. There hasn't been a gun rights "compromise" (or proposal for one) where democrats gave anything back in congress in ... well never. It's always more restrictions of existing rights. Compromise implies both sides give and take, and in the case of gun rights, democrats have only taken.
  - dougmany 6y ago
    I know a lot of liberal gun owning people. I have a hunch this is like environmental issues. I think many conservative want to support environmental issues but since it clashes with more government control, it get's thrown under the bus.
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > I know a lot of liberal gun owning people. I have a hunch this is like environmental issues. I think many conservative want to support environmental issues but since it clashes with more government control, it get's thrown under the bus. The American political system doesn't support a la carte ordering, it only has prix fixe options. If your priority is some main course, you might not be able to get the side you want with it.
      - efreak 6y ago
        To make things worse, your main course might well be a side course; the thing you want might well be sacrificed for something else.
  - alasdair_ 6y ago
    >Very much this. There hasn't been a gun rights "compromise" (or proposal for one) where democrats gave anything back in congress in ... well never. It's always more restrictions of existing rights. This is actually a very good point. I wonder what the response would be to a Democrat-authored bill that (say) demanded universal background checks and proof of a firearms safety course completion and mandatory insurance like a driver's license that ALSO banned any restrictions on large magazine size and removed any restrictions on fully-automatic weapons, or something similar.
roenxi 6y ago
Putting aside a lot of nuance and complication, both parties have an 'ideal state' in mind. They will make decisions that move the law closer to that ideal state. It'll be happening all the time, neither of them think the ideal state is compromising with the other. And if you want an example of the Democrats doing something similar, maybe the immigration situation? It is also nuanced and complicated, but the appearance isn't that the Democrats are consistently working to uphold the consensus position as found in the law. There is a lot of demonising.

BoiledCabbage 6y ago

But yet again, while both sides may feel this way, when measured objectively (as has been done) it's shown that almost all of the sudden polarization of the past 30 years has come from the right continuously moving further right.

lostapathy 6y ago
Have they really moved farther right, or do they seem farther to the right since a lot of politics have moved to the left over that time? See same sex marriage, for example.
- Majromax 6y ago
  A 2011-era FiveThirtyEight article (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-president-obama/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-presiden...) looked at average DW-NOMINATE scores over time for the House of Representatives. Its conclusion was: > According to the system, both parties have been on a trajectory toward more “extreme” positions since roughly 1970, the natural result of which is more polarization. However, the parties do not quite share equal responsibility for this: Republicans have moved about twice as much to the right as Democrats have to the left. Also, while the Democrats’ leftward shift was essentially a one-off event, the result of many moderate, Southern Democrats losing their seats in the early 1990s, the Republicans’ rightward transition has been continuous and steady. Although to caution too-credulous interpretation, the DW-NOMINATE scores are derived from roll-call votes, so they may be biased by the issues brought up for such votes.
  - jimbob21 6y ago
    This says the opposite, as well as being more recent. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-center-study-shows-that-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-c...
sam_goody 6y ago
> when measured objectively (as has been done) Citation needed. I have seen this claim about the left at least as much as about the right. I would definitely appreciate someone who could bring facts to the discussion. And a one sided list of things that party X did is just emotion. (Also, a good rule in honest debate is to never argue unless you have at least two advantages to the opposing position. Such that I hate Windows, but I wish Linux had their GUI... This helps bridge the "us" and "them", and gets to a much more accurate result)

digitaltrees 6y ago

People can think whatever they, that doesn’t make it real. Your argument is a false equivalence. Even if both sides do it, it’s not of the same proportion and that matters. Objectively, Republicans are not compromising, they are often explicit that they are waging a scorched earth zero compromise negotiating style. The heritage foundation wrote the template for the ACA in the 70s as an alternative to Medicare expansion. It was then Bob Dole’s plan when he ran against Bill Clinton, and was Dole’s alternative to Clinton’s health plan. Then Romney passed it in Massachusetts. But when Obama consciously tries to compromise and meet in the middle instead of participating they say it’s communism. They spent a decade to repeal a plan they invented. Similar with global warming. Cap and trade was a republican idea. Where have they compromised? Instead they are demonizing all of science to shift the conversation to absurdity. How about the 2008 stimulus. Obama has to fight tooth an nail for 800 billion even though economists say the output gap is $1.5 Trillion and the stimulus needs to be bigger. But Obama agrees thinking when it’s clear more is needed more will be available. He underestimated how much Mitch meant it when he said “the single objective is to make Obama a one term president” and was willing to let the economy struggle if needed. Then Trump gets $3 trillion with Democrats compromising all over the place.